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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206349">Suffering too terrible to name</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney'>MaddieandChimney</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>9-1-1 (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, tw: mentions of a miscarriage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:40:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,196</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206349</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Maddie and her three-year-old daughter move in with Buck when she and Chimney take a break, after the loss of their second child.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Evan "Buck" Buckley &amp; Maddie Buckley, Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Madney One-Shots</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Suffering too terrible to name</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maddie forces a small smile on her face - despite her red eyes and tear-stained cheeks - the moment her brother opens his apartment door. “Uncle Buck!” Amelia cries out, a massive smile on her face before he picks her up with ease. She feels relief that the three-year-old is still too young to understand exactly what’s going on, that she thinks they’re on a small holiday with Uncle Buck. She has no clue that her mommy and daddy can’t even stand to be in the same room as each other anymore.</p><p>She watches the way Buck forces a grin on his own face, the concern in his eyes obvious, pressing his lips to his niece’s cheek until he sets her down. “Why don’t you go watch some TV whilst mommy and Uncle Buck get these bags unpacked?” The little girl all too eagerly runs towards his couch, leaving the two adults to just stare at each other for a second.</p><p>“I can’t believe you actually left.” He whispers, brushing her hair from her face when the tears start to well in her eyes once more. “You know Chimney would have stayed with me and you and Amelia…”</p><p>She’s quick to shake her head, glad her brother isn’t taking sides because she’s not sure either her or Chimney are in the right or wrong, not entirely. “I needed to get out of the house.” Truthfully, she just wanted her little brother, she wasn’t sure being alone in the house she had bought with the man she loved, the house where she had lost their baby, was the right thing for her right then. She couldn’t be left alone with her thoughts; she’d been alone enough with her husband generally avoiding being around her.</p><p>“It’s going to be okay, you know that, right? You and Chimney… you’re meant to be. This is just a blip.” Maddie wants to believe his words more than anything, god knows she’s stayed in an unhappier marriage for a hell of a lot longer. But it wasn’t just her to think about, they had a child who had been witness to far too many screaming matches over the last few weeks. Maddie knew she had no choice but to remove them from the situation the moment Amelia started sobbing at the top of the stairs the night before.</p><p>“I don’t know if we’re gonna make it this time, Evan.” The words are enough to cause the tears to finally slip down her face, her bottom lip trembling before she slaps her hand quickly over her mouth to try and muffle the sound of her sobs. Amelia deserves better than seeing her mother constantly breaking down, she’s only three and Maddie is entirely certain she’s already traumatised her child for the test of her life.</p><p>Her brother is quick to shake his head, wrapping his arms tightly around her as he pulls her into him, “Don’t say that, you’re Maddie and Chimney. It’s… it’s going to be okay, I promise.”</p><p>“You can’t promise that.”</p><p>“I can and I just did.” He pulls back just enough to look her in the eyes, pressing both hands to either side of her face as he gives a firm nod of his own head. “You can stay here as long as you need but you’re both going to get through this.” There’s a determination in his voice, until he takes a deep breath, moving to grab her suitcase, “You two can take the bed.”</p><p>“W-we can’t do that… you need—”</p><p>“You’re not going to be here long, anyway. It’s not up for debate.”</p><p>.</p><p>When Chimney walks into work the day after Maddie had packed her bags, taken their daughter and left, he’s dreading having to face her brother. He half-expects anger, hatred or in the very least, a guilt-trip on how he hadn’t turned up at his door yet, begging Maddie to come back to him. Instead, Buck greets him with a small smile and a coffee in his outstretched hand. “Thanks…” He mumbles, slowly taking the coffee with a suspicious frown, “You’ve not poisoned it have you?”</p><p>It’s a terrible attempt at a joke, but his brother-in-law laughs anyway, quickly shaking his head, “Not yet, anyway.”</p><p>“Are my girls okay?” Even he winces at his own words, hating the way he feels as though he’s about to burst into tears at any given second, as though he didn’t cry himself to sleep the night before. The house was lonely, quiet without Amelia, the bed was too big without Maddie. If Buck is at all thrown by the question, he doesn’t show it, only shrugs his shoulders before he bites down on his lip, looking the other man up and down.</p><p>“Amelia is fine, she doesn’t really understand. Maddie is doing about as well as you’re doing by the looks of things.” Buck is definitely not taking sides but if there is anything he can do to bring the two of them back together, he’s not above trying it. “I’ve not had to stay in a bed with my sister for six years…” He shudders, at the memories of Maddie waking up screaming from a nightmare when she first got to L.A, how he’d had to wrap his arms around her and whisper that she was going to be okay, even if he never believed it at the time.</p><p>There’s a flash of guilt on Chimney’s face that prompts him to continue, “She cried herself to sleep, eventually.”</p><p>“She’s been crying herself to sleep a lot lately.” Chimney points out, noting how she wouldn’t let him touch her every single time he had tried to roll over in the bed and pull her close. He can’t even remember the last time she cried in his arms, the last time she let him hold her or the last time she would even look him in the eyes. The past five weeks had been hell for the both of them, Chimney had wanted to open up and talk about everything that happened, he wanted to remember their baby, tell her that it was going to be okay eventually. Only, Maddie wanted to shut down, she wanted to forget, the moment she had suggested they simply ‘try again’ was the moment everything imploded.</p><p>A sudden wave of sickness washes over him, forcing him to stumble down onto the bench, watching as Buck moves to sit next to him. “You lost a child, no one is expecting either of you to just… get over that.” They had been so excited for the arrival of their second child, they had been trying for over a year to give Amelia a little brother or sister, they had been so close to giving up before she had come running into the station one evening with a positive pregnancy test and happy tears falling down her face. Only, for it to be stolen from them a few days after her twenty-week scan. When they had been told they were having a second little girl, after they had celebrated… after they had made so many plans.</p><p>His head comes to rest in his hands, trying to force back the tears as he takes deep breaths, until Buck puts his hand on his back. “I don’t know if we’re gonna make it this time.” He whispers, unknowingly repeating the same words as his wife had the night before as his palms press against his closed eyes.</p><p>Five years. That’s how long they had been together, barely a year married and already, he couldn’t see a way through this. He had tried to imagine it but too much had been said, too many tears had been shed… he couldn’t <em>see</em> an ending that involved them getting back to the people they were before. They were too broken – arguments that had started with her refusing to open up to him whilst he begged her to let him be there for her, had somehow grown into arguing over everything and anything. He was late home from work once, Maddie had accused him of avoiding her. He came home drunk after a night out with the 118, Maddie had told him he wasn’t grieving properly, whatever that was meant.</p><p>He wasn’t innocent though, they’d argued over her not giving Amelia anything nutritional for dinner when he came home to her eating frozen pizza for the fifth time that week. They’d argued when Maddie didn’t get out of bed for eight days, when she suggested the only thing that would help her heal was if he gave her another baby. That one had been the worst.</p><p>They’d had one massively painful experience and had spent the past five weeks that followed trying to hurt each other even more. Until she told him she couldn’t do it anymore, that she was simply too tired to keep fighting. And he had agreed, helping her pack instead of begging her to stay.</p><p>“You’re Maddie and Chimney,” Buck repeats the same words he had used with his sister the night before, “you’re meant to be together, it’s going to be okay.”</p><p>.</p><p>Maddie walks into the station, Amelia resting on her hip, pausing only when she sees her husband for the first time in two weeks. She takes in his rugged appearance, how exhausted he looks, how he seems to have aged more in the last few weeks than he has in the near six years since she first met him. She knows she doesn’t look any better, wishing she could just feel his arms around her, even if only for a second.</p><p>“Maddie? What are you doing here? I thought Buck was dropping Amelia off at seven?” They had been using her poor brother as a go-between, passing Amelia between her parents whilst they refused to see each other.</p><p>She glances at the sleeping toddler, trying to ignore the way they’ve attracted the attention of everyone around them. “She has a f-fever a-and I couldn’t… she was asking for both of us.” He’s all too quick to take her from her arms, barely looking at his wife as he does as Maddie takes a deep breath, just watching him. It aches to see how he rocks their tiny daughter in his arms, his attention entirely focused on her in an attempt to avoid her. “Will you look at me?”</p><p>He does as she asks, eyes meeting with hers for the first time in so long. “I miss you.” She finally whispers, daring herself to take a step forward, “I think we need help but… I miss you. I miss you more and more every day.”</p><p>“You’re the one who left, Maddie.” She’s too late, that’s all she can think of right then, tears falling down pale cheeks as she takes a trembling breath.</p><p>For a moment, she very much considers taking their daughter from him and walking back out, wishing she had never said anything in the first place. Frank had asked her to be honest, had told her if she wanted her marriage to work then she had to at least see if Chimney felt the same way before she gave up entirely. She had been right, it really was over but she can’t punish Amelia, not when she had been whimpering for her daddy.</p><p>She takes a step forward, just to press her lips to the sleeping girls forehead, wiping at the tears that have fallen from her eyes onto her daughter’s skin before she dares herself to place her hand on Chimney’s cheek, squeezing gently as her nose scrunches up and the tears continue to fall. She doesn’t say a word, she’s not sure she really knows what to say because it feels as though her heart has just been broken all over again.</p><p>“Y-you left but… I should have stopped you.” He makes it look easy as he settles Amelia in the crook of one arm, only watching as she stirs ever so slightly before hiding her little face in her daddy’s shoulder. Using his other arm to pull Maddie into his side, his lips pressing to the top of her head. Two weeks away from her was enough, not to mention the five weeks since he had been holding her, both of them sobbing in a hospital room.</p><p>Maddie wraps an arm around his waist, hiding her face in his other shoulder, “Frank thinks we need therapy.” She mumbles, fingers curling around his shirt as she tries to ease her sobs.</p><p>“Your therapist thinks you need therapy?” Her husband weakly jokes, a small smile on his face despite his own tears, “That’s definitely impressive.”</p><p>“<em>We</em>.” She points out, letting out a sad laugh before she snuggles a little more into him, her grip tightening. “Do you think maybe… we can fight for us?”</p><p>“I’ve never wanted anything more but you have to come home, okay? The house is… I need my girls, both of you.” There was a time when he could have had three of them, but really, going from three to zero in the space of a few weeks had much too much to handle.</p><p>“Home sounds good, Buck snores.”</p>
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